Mistral Large 2 vs Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Mistral Large 2 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 59 to 36. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Mistral Large 2's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 61 against 33.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 68 to 29.

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while Mistral Large 2 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.

Quick Verdict

Pick Mistral Large 2 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Agentic

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

52.2

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

38.5

51
Terminal-Bench 2.0
39
57
BrowseComp
41
50
OSWorld-Verified
36

Coding

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

41.8

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

15.2

60
HumanEval
24
49
SWE-bench Verified
17
38
LiveCodeBench
16
44
SWE-bench Pro
14

Multimodal & Grounded

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

61

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

33.4

56
MMMU-Pro
28
67
OfficeQA Pro
40

Reasoning

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

67.5

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

42.1

66
SimpleQA
32
64
MuSR
33
82
BBH
70
66
LongBench v2
44
68
MRCRv2
47

Knowledge

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

54.6

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

30

68
MMLU
30
68
GPQA
29
66
SuperGPQA
27
64
OpenBookQA
25
74
MMLU-Pro
54
12
HLE
5
65
FrontierScience
34

Instruction Following

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

83

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

70

83
IFEval
70

Multilingual

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

79.1

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

61.7

81
MGSM
63
78
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

73.8

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

47.8

68
AIME 2023
33
70
AIME 2024
35
69
AIME 2025
34
64
HMMT Feb 2023
29
66
HMMT Feb 2024
31
65
HMMT Feb 2025
30
67
BRUMO 2025
32
82
MATH-500
67

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Mistral Large 2 is ahead overall, 59 to 36. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 68 and 29.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 54.6 versus 30. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 41.8 versus 15.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 73.8 versus 47.8. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 67.5 versus 42.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 52.2 versus 38.5. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 61 versus 33.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 83 versus 70. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.1 versus 61.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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